Contemporary Southern Homes, a new hardcover book published by Schiffer Publishing, Ltd, features three Modern houses designed by Raleigh architect Frank Harmon, FAIA: the Low Country house in Mount Pleasant, South Carolina; the Strickland-Ferris house in Raleigh, NC; and Harmon’s own home, also in Raleigh.

In her introduction, author E. Ashley Rooney explains that her latest architecture book spotlights “twenty-one Southern design professionals whose architectural styles vary as much as the region. Their award-winning work ranges from the classical symmetry of Georgian Paladian to modernist traditions infused with fascinating flair…The work of these forward-thinking architects and designers helps us to envision new ways of living in the world.”

Frank Harmon is the founder and principal of the multi-award-winning firm Frank Harmon Architect PA and a Professor in Practice at North Carolina State University’s College of Design. His projects represented in the book exemplify Rooney’s appreciation for the “expansive, open floor plans, the seeming disappearance of the boundary between the exterior and the interior, and the use of indigenous materials” found in Southern contemporary homes:

…The Low Country house both welcomes nature and protects against it: The one-room-deep floor plan gives each room windows and porches overlooking Shem Creek while a series of handcrafted metal screens on the exterior can be lowered to protect all the glazing from flying debris during hurricanes. In their upright position, they provide shade for the glass.

…Harmon’s own home is an example of a house and gardens designed simultaneously as halves of the greater whole and equal parts of the living experience. Harmon designed the house with his late wife, landscape architect Judy Harmon. To give the house a sense of both strength and lightness, the couple used steel for the structure and an abundance of glass.

The Strickland-Ferris House. Photo by Jeffrey Jacobs.

…The Strickland-Ferris house perches on broad-shouldered trusses to avoid disturbing the natural hydrology of its steep site. The entire two-story rear elevation is glass that, combined with clerestory windows on the other three elevations, makes the wooded exterior a constant presence inside the house’s open floor plan.

Frank Harmon, FAIA, is principal of the multi-award-winning firm Frank Harmon Architect PA in Raleigh, NC, a Professor in Practice at NC State University’s College of Design, and the 2013 winner of AIA North Carolina’s F. Carter Williams Gold Medal, the highest honor presented by the Chapter to an AIA NC member to recognize a distinguished career and extraordinary accomplishments as an architect. In 2010 Harmon was included in Residential Architect’s inaugural “RA 50: The Short List of Architects We Love.” In 2013, his firm was ranked 21st among the top 50 firms in the nation by Architect Magazine. Frank Harmon is also the author and illustrator for NativePlaces.org, a series in which he uses hand-drawn sketches and mini-essays to examine the relationship between nature and built structures. For more information: http://www.frankharmon.com. Contact information: frank@frankharmon.com; 919.829.9464; 14 East Peace Street, Raleigh, NC 27604.